Dr. Amir Shapiro

A robotics scientist from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in
Beersheeba, Israel, has developed four different kinds of robots that
climb up walls.

The latest projects of Amir Shapiro, head of the robotics laboratory in
the Department of Engineering, are wall-climbers, two of which are
inspired by animals that climb. One robot, inspired by snails and their
trails of mucus, secretes a tiny trail of hot melted glue that allows it
to stick to walls as it climbs, while another, inspired by cats and
rodents, has four legs with claws made of fish hooks to help it climb
rough surfaces.

A third robot in the collection is a wheeled robot with 3M sticky tape
on the wheels to enable it to climb up smooth surfaces such as glass or
a whiteboard. The fourth is magnetic and can climb smooth metal
surfaces, which may make it useful for clambering around the submerged
hulls of cargo ships to check for contraband and bombs, and replacing
divers who now do this work. Shapiro said that a good scanning algorithm
could make the robot very efficient for this purpose.

Amir Shapiro, Ph.D. is Lecturer,
Head of the Robotics Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Ben Gurion University of the Negev,
Beer Sheva, Israel where he focuses on
locomotion of multi-limbed mechanisms in unstructured complex
environments.